design | writing notes

What is platform literacy?

Anyone who is trying to think about platforms and their impact should be following Mark Carrigan. His Platform Capitalism Reading Group includes key readings and is a discussion I wish I could have attended. And then their is this simple text What is platform literacy? in connection with a call for reading materials. This is why this is a fascinating question:

“In the last couple of years, I’ve found myself returning repeatedly to the idea of platform literacy. By this I mean a capacity to understand how platforms shape the action which takes place through them, sometimes in observable and explicit ways but usually in unobservable and implicit ones. It concerns our own (inter)actions and how this context facilitates or frustrates them, as well as the unseen ways in which it subtly moulds them and the responses of others to them.”

Nothing is more beautiful (and frustrating) to an academic to read a simple paragraph that nails the questions rattling around in your own mind. Thanks Mark!

The goal of platform literacy is to be able to identify the subtle ways in which actions are directed, controlled, regulated and censored in the online environment. To mangle the great “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” (Wittgenstein) – We cannot protest that which prevents us from protesting.

Posted on May 14, 2018 by Mathias Klang

Laughing or crying at Le Corbusier: Every action has consequences

If we were to ignore his impact on a generation of architects and urban planners, we can also turn to the furniture line created by himself and his designers and introduced in the 1920s and 1930s. Gorgeous creations of chrome tubes and leather cushions that have been featured in magazines and films for decades, usually signifying luxury or the future but not always. Here is an example of one of his chairs in The Big Lebowski (Ethan Coen, 1998).

For designers, hipsters, and furniture nerds this is all great. But for us copyright geeks, it takes a lot longer before it all begins to get interesting. Le Corbusier died in 1965, but naturally his designs and thoughts are still influential several decades on. We think differently about design because of him. This is all well and good.

The part that makes it difficult to know whether to laugh or cry is the news that Le Corbusier’s heirs (and the holders of his copyright today), after discovering that some of their relative’s work was included in Getty Images enormous photo collection, have sued Getty for making the images available online. The copyright holders won the case: Fondation Le Corbusier v. Getty Images (Paris Court of Appeals, Pole 5, 2nd chamber June 13, 2014). Read more about it over at The 1709 Blog.

Copyright is important and the images involved in the case were not pictures of other things with some furniture in the background. They were clearly identifiable as Le Corbusier, and in the foreground. Additionally the photos did not make any reference to Le Corbusier as having anything to do with the chairs!

So the Le Corbusier family gained some money and can argue that they defended the family honor. But to what expense? Since Getty Images has 80000 images online, will they have to act in some way to prevent other families eager to profit from the remains of their dead ancestors?

Will cases like this scare other archives away from digitizing images and making them available online? The aftereffects of this sort of thing has the potential to drag us back from the cultural bonanza of online archives. Today we go online and find what we want – should the relatives of dead designers have the power to prevent this?

Does sharing the same DNA as a creator make you well suited to decide the fate of her creations?

This post originally appeared here.

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Mathias Klang

What is good design for you?

In praise of analogue technologies

All of us are immersed in technologies but when we speak of technology we inevitably jump to the digital varieties. This is unsurprising as these are the new, new things of the day. It’s also unsurprising as we have been taught to be enthralled by shiny technology due to the ways in which Apple has designed and marketed their products.

In addition to this my own views of design and desire is warped by my workplace and research interests. This results in the creating of the idea that design must, almost exclusively, deal with digital technology.

But there is something very limiting in this worldview and I would like to get a better perception of the design of everyday things. One way to go is to read the design books – and I can highly recommend this approach – why not read, for example, Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things.

But I want to go another way and explore design through the things that surround us. We are in a period of design fetishism where good must be expensive and then gets priced that way. So price is involved but I would like to go beyond the dominance of price in looking for, and at, design.

So what I would like is to collect examples of good design with a motivation as to why it is good design. I am not looking for consensus but for stories. So to kick it off I would like to give some examples of good analogue design.

The Barcelona chair – this is a visual object that changes the room in which it is set. It pleases me to sit in it even if other chairs would do the job equally well. It’s affect on me is entwined with my ideas of the chair as well as the object itself.

Good kitchen knives. The balance of a “real” kitchen knife is extremely tactile. It fits and becomes an extension of the hand that uses it. Equally a bad knife makes cooking a chore.

The Merkur razor. At some point I got tired of being owned by Gillette and bought a real old razor with real old razor blades. It’s heavy and does not fit in the hand like the kitchen knife but because of its weight and the risk of cuts turns a boring everyday task into a meditative act. Sure, I may bleed a bit more but the morning ritual is totally different today.

So please let me know, what are your examples of good design?

Posted on November 24, 2011 by mklang

Fairey gets two years

On Friday Shepard Fairey was sentenced to two years’ probation by the Boston Municipal Court. The sentence is based upon the images he posted on public and private property over the years. (via Designboom)

the well-known illustrator and graphic designer has pleaded guilty to three charges of vandalism, including defacing property and wanton destruction of property under 250 USD. he had 11 other chargers which have been dropped. he has been fined 2,000 USD for graffiti removal. Designboom

Fairey’s most widely spread and famous work (probably) is the André the giant obey mashup (or whatever it should be called).

Multi-affiches Boulevard St Germain 06e? .jpg by yoyolabellut (CC BY-NC-ND)

But he reached new peaks of fame for his wonderful “hope” poster designed during the Barack Obama campaign.

Obama Posters by el clinto (CC BY-NC-ND)

Is this the plight of all known street artists who become famous enough to be identified?

Posted on July 13, 2009 by mklang

Design to meet the daily needs

Designboom reports that French designer and architect Philippe Starck has criticized designer items. During his recent lecture in the main hall of the university in Florence he

…rejects design activity that ‘wants to become art, but in fact is producing items’ – unnecessary and costly things.

he continued by advising students

…to develop objects ‘with a spirit of service towards the people’, as this would help creating a more ‘easy and comfortable daily life’.

Starck explained his philosophy of design: “in the design of an object, we must always focus on the way in which its use can meet the daily needs”.

Starck continued his attack and claim that ‘he had never understood all those designers who are trying to become an artist, creating products that end up being useless, expensive and therefore are a danger to society.’

‘I prefer to design mass-produced chairs at a cost of 1 euro, that sell in 100,000 items, rather than a single one that is quoted 100.000 euro.

Philippe Starck has given a funny, deep & thoughtful TED talk about design and his thoughts on task of designing and the role of the designer. His basic premise is designing for the user.

This is nothing really amazingly new but it still needs to be said and he says it in a very convincing way!

Posted on July 9, 2009 by mklang

HCC8

IFIP-TC9 HCC8
8th International Conference on Human Choice and Computers
on
Social Dimensions of ICT Policy

University of Pretoria
25-26 September 2008

Thursday 25 September

9:00 – 9:30 Opening session
Welcome speeches by conference organizers at the University of Pretoria

9:30 – 10:30 Plenary session: keynote speech
Communication, Information and ICT Policy: Towards enabling research frameworks, Robin Mansell

10:30 – 11:00 coffee break

11:00 – 12:30 Plenary session: Issues of governance of the information society
• 15 Years of Ways of Internet Governance: towards a new agenda for action, Jacques Berleur
• Free and Open Source Software in low-income countries: emergent properties? (panel): Gianluca Miscione (chair), Dorothy K. Gordon, Kevin Johnston

12:30 – 14:00 lunch break

14:00 – 15:30 Track 1: Harnessing the empowering capacity of ICT
• Government policies for ICT diffusion and the governance of grassroots movements, Magda Hercheui
• Egyptian women artisans: ICTs are not the entry to modern markets, Leila Hassanin
• Digital divides and the role of policy and regulation: a qualitative study of Greece, Panayiota Tsatsou

Track 2: National information systems infrastructures
• Institutional strategies towards improving health information systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, Solomon B. Bishaw
• Technology, globalization and governance: research perspectives and prospects, Diego Navarra and Tony Cornford
• Globalization and national security issues for the state: implications for national ICT policies, Jackie Phahlamohlaka

15:30 – 16:00 coffee break

16:00 – 17:30 Track 1: ICT and development in Africa
• Examining trust in mobile banking transactions: the case of M-PESA in Kenya, Olga Morawczynski and Gianluca Miscione
• Next generation ICT policy in South Africa: towards a human development-based ICT policy, Walter Brown and Irwin Brown
• Challenges of ICT policy for rural communities: a case study from South Africa, Mpostol Jeremia Mashinini

Track 2: ICT in education
• A human environmentalist approach to diffusion in ICT policies, Elaine Byrne and Lizette Weilbach
• ICT and socio-economic development: a university’s engagement in a rural community in Yola, Nigeria, Jainaba M.L. Kah and Muhammadou M.O. Kah
• Lessons from a dropped ICT curriculum design project: a retrospective view, Roohollah Honarvar

Friday 26 September

9:00 – 10:00 Plenary session: keynote speech Dorothy Gordon

10:00 – 10:30 coffee break

10:30 – 11:30 Plenary session: panel on the policy implications of a UK mega-programme in the health sector
Evaluating ‘Connecting for Health’: policy implications of a UK mega-programme, Kathy McGrath (chair) Jane Hendy, Ela Klekun, Leslie Willcocks, Terry Young

11:30 – 12:30 Plenary session: panel on ICT and women’s empowerment
Gender research in Africa into ICTs for empowerment (GRACE), Ineke Buskens and Anne Webb (co-chairs), Gertrudes Macueve, Ibou Sane

12:30 – 14:00 lunch break

14:00 – 16:00 Track 1: European Union and national ICT policies
• Empowerment through ICT: a critical discourse analysis of the Egyptian ICT policy, Bernd Carsten Stahl
• American and African geospatial myths: the argumentative structure of spatial data infrastructure initiatives, Yola Georgiadou and Vincent Homburg
• ICT policy as a governable domain: the case of Greece and the European Commission, Ioanna Chini
• National variations of the information society: evidence from the Greek case, Dimitris Boucas

Track 2: Challenging two fundamental institutions of modernity: IPR and measurement
• Social networks within filtered ICT networks: internet usage within Iran, Farid Shirazi
• No-IPR model as solution to reuse and understanding of information systems, Kai K. Kimppa
• Measuring ICT for development, Anouk Mukherjee
• Open Access and Action Research, Mathias Klang

16:00 – 16:30 coffee break

16:30 – 17:30 Closing plenary session: Discussion of emerging issues on ICT policy research, Chrisanthi Avgerou (chair)

Posted on July 2, 2008 by mklang

War on photography

There has been some really weird stuff happening to photographers. The mood is growing against public photo takers are being hassled by police. The idea is that taking photo’s in public is becoming more and mote connected to terrorism.

Schneier on security writes:

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don’t seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer?

Because it’s a movie-plot threat.

He develops this as an interesting theory. Read the rest here…

Posted on June 6, 2008 by mklang

The fashion commons

Intellectual property and fashion – now there is a minefield. To those who are fashion oriented the look and feel of favorite labels goes beyond the property debate and enters into the realm of defining personality. People who wear Nike are…, Paul Smith is…, Billabong shorts are…

You get the idea. Never really thought too much about the connection between Creative Commons and fashion copyright but I read on the CC blog that the Berlin-based fashion label Pamoyo have decided to release the designs for their clothes under a CC BY-NC-SA license, allowing people to recreate Pamoyo’s styles at home as long as they don’t sell their creations. Similarly, someone can build upon one of Pamoyo’s existing designs – if they release the new design publicly they must do so under the same license, continuing the process of reuse and creativity.

What is the correct attribution on a swimsuit?

Posted on June 4, 2008 by mklang

Books as decoration

For some books are more than just reading material they provide collectively a visual and tactile experience. Some would even go so far as to compare it to a fetish – Candida Höfer’s gorgeous book Libraries (some images here) is hot stuff! Others are more creative with their design of shelves – check out thirty creative bookshelves here.

Via Boing Boing another focus for books emerges – no longer is content king but over at Book Decor you can now buy old leather bound books by the meter. This is not really new but what I like is there different styles and their descriptions. In particular these two:

Hand Picked – This books are carefully Hand Picked for their beauty and craftsmanship. They are highly detailed with gilt (gold) with beautiful images such as flowers, animals, people, cherubs and intricate patterns, Embossed on wonderful leather, the workmanship is exquisite and rarely seen in today’s mass produced books. Our Hand Picked books are truly a small work of art. They will grace any home with there beauty for years too come. Available only in limited numbers and most likely will never be recreated. Truly a book anyone would be proud to have in there home.

Less Than Perfect – The Less Then Perfect books do not quite meet our usual standards. These books have bits and pieces of the spine missing, maybe a small tear. Sometime they may be in a color that is less desirable, however none of these books are falling apart. When put together they look beautiful and it is only on closer inspection that it is noticeable that these books have been lovingly used over many years, and as such have developed that worn patina look that some find very desirable.

Now its OK to love the books without caring to read them. How strange that the artifact has become greater than the content.

Posted on May 29, 2008 by mklang